Network Boss-man

Just watched this and thought it was really fascinating - and as a forum dedicated to a form of media that is primarily dominated by Japanese culture, I think the issue Japan is currently facing with its population shrinkage is something that's bound to effect our hobby eventually.

PSICOM Soldier

Pretty interesting watch, is it wrong though that I'm more on the side of the Love+ guys?

Anita said about how they're not doing anyone harm etc, but how it's like (forgive me if I butcher this) they're a group of people not forced to grow up. Well I just didn't see it that way? If they have a job and all the traditional responsibilities, but choose to spend all their free time dating a Nintendo DS game then so be it? Granted I'm just making assumptions seeing as how I don't know anything about them, aside from the one guy having a wife I assume he has a job.

SeeD A-Class

Just watched this and thought it was really fascinating - and as a forum dedicated to a form of media that is primarily dominated by Japanese culture, I think the issue Japan is currently facing with its population shrinkage is something that's bound to effect our hobby eventually.

Wow, that was an awesome documentary. I'm going to share that with some others I know that'd be interested. Thanks for sharing!
I didn't know Japan's population was decreasing, because I think most would assume it's constantly increasing because of their huge population numbers.

Knight of Death

I haven't had the chance to watch the documentary yet, so I can't yet comment on the content of the video, but internet discussions of the current looming Japanese demographic crisis focus on the hikikomori/otaku cultures, as a ubiquitous thing in the country. I don't dispute that as a major social problem, but I think all too frequently we fail to focus as much on social expectations when it comes to women.

There is a reason why 70 percent of women drop out of the work force after having their first child (Global Issues). It's a continual belief within the work culture and within management that women simply can't accommodate a working life on top of raising a child, hence why there is still a dishearteningly vast preference for men and a wide breadth of career-building opportunities for men. I don't doubt that there has been significant improvement, but there is still a majority mindset (51%) sticking to the belief that women should stay at home, while husbands serve as the breadwinners. On top of that, bosses preferring to exchange a female worker for a male rather than allowing her paid leave. And women who have successfully made something of themselves in the career ladder just don't have the desire to risk and lose all that to raise a family - or even be in a relationship - fearing that they may not be able to even come back.

And sadly, that seems to be the social dichotomy for women in Japan. A personal life with a partner who may want to start a family, or to find that career window wherever possible and to make the most of it. And given some efforts made to allow more Japanese women to succeed in the workplace, while their numbers may go up, the pervasive socially conservative mode of thinking is going to remain. On top of that, Japan remains hostile, at least not open to, immigration, so unless social thinking quickly and drastically changes, the population decline will continue, and the economy will continue to stagnate for even more decades to come as a decreasing working-age demographic has to keep the country economically afloat while supporting pension schemes for the vast elderly demographic.

Network Boss-man

@Fleur Yeah -- one of the reasons this documentary is good is that it only spends about five minutes on the Otaku stuff (though it does find a guy who wouldn't even answer if he'd choose his real wife or his virtual girlfriend if he had to choose one, which is amazing and mortifying) and focus a lot on other contributing factors. It touches on an increasingly active older generation, a male sex who is failing to live up to expectations in other areas -- all sorts of thing.

The main thing it ends up focusing on, though, is the Japanese failure to fully utilize the country's women, integrating them fully into its economy. Women have to make a choice between that and a family, essentially, the societal pressures in each area far too high to realistically achieve both. The issue this causes is obvious: Japan has a worse debt to GDP ratio than even bankrupt, ruined Greece, and they need to utilize every single able-bodied person to right that regardless of sex. The problem is only growing because they have an increasingly large older generation to care for, too, who live off pensions and government hand-outs. If the women focus on that, though, the Birth rate will continue to fall, which damages debt and GDP in the same way as that means in new generations there's less children, therefore less teenagers, therefore less adults, and through that less taxpayers.

Japan won't be able to maintain its economic position in the world without enough taxpaying workers to support it, and that is the real danger here - this isn't just a population level cliff - after all, the world is overpopulated as it is - it's a financial cliff. One of the solutions could be to loosen up immigration and bring in more skilled workers from overseas, but the homogeneous attitude within Japan makes that a bitter pill to swallow, and one I doubt Abe can force.